Cartoons Cause Violence?

A new report published in the November issue of Pediatrics shows a causal link between violence in children's programming and subsequent violent behaviour in children.

"Parents have been socialized to think that cartoon violence is harmless, but it's not," says report co-author Dr. Dimitri Christakis. "Speaking broadly, the link between on-screen violence and subsequent violent behavior is as strong as evidence that smoking causes lung cancer."

Dr. Christakis and Frederick Zimmerman, PhD, both of Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute and the University of Washington School of Medicine, wrote the article, which is titled “Violent Television Viewing During Preschool is Associated with Anti-social Behavior During School Age.”

The study reviewed data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which studied 8,000 U.S. families for 40 years.

One Hour of Violent TV = 3x Increased Aggression

In the study, parents of 184 boys and 146 girls aged 2 to 5 tracked what their children watched, and reported anti-social behaviour in their offsprings' later years: behaviour which included cheating, being mean, disobedience, destructiveness, and demonstrating a lack of remorse for their actions.

The researchers discovered that, for every hour that children watched violent programming in their pre-school years, their aggression increased threefold when they were aged 7 to 10.

“These findings are a bit unnerving because we know from other studies that the behaviors children manifest in early childhood track into adolescence and even into adulthood,” said Christakis. “As children grow older they gradually learn coping skills to deal with difficult situations, so it’s important to provide positive role models for them at a young age.”

However, this was only the case for boys: girls appeared impervious to violence on TV, whatever they watched. Christakis wants to study the girls' findings more closely, but for now he attributes it to the possibility that boys are biologically more prone to aggression, along with the fact that girls learn different social norms for their behaviour.

Power Rangers, Star Wars Encourages Violence; Toy Story Doesn't

Television programs such as televised football and ice hockey matches, plus many cartoons and movies with titles like Power Rangers, Star Wars, Space Jam and Spider-Man were classified as violent entertainment. These shows depict characters fighting or fleeing from violence, rejoicing in violent acts, and depicting more violence than a child would ordinarily see.

Christakis especially called out Looney Tunes cartoons in his study, telling the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that, by encouraging them to watch such violent cartoons, "You are actually teaching [children] that violence is funny."

Interestingly enough, those classic Looney Tunes cartoons were never originally intended for a children's audience. They were originally placed in front of feature films in movie theatres that showed mainstream movies like Captain Blood or Casablanca.

The report classified such films and programs like Rugrats, The Flintstones and Pixar's classic movie Toy Story as non-violent programming. A third category of educational programming was also reviewed, which featured shows like Barney, Sesame Street, Magic School Bus and Winnie-the-Pooh. Children only exhibited increased aggressive behaviour after watching the violent shows.

Educational Shows Don't Encourage Violence . . .

“This new study provides further evidence of how important and powerful television and media are as young children develop,” said report co-author Dr. Dimitri Christakis. “However, the news here is not all bad. While we found that shows like violent cartoons or football can make children more aggressive, we found no such effect for other programs such as educational ones. This points out that parents must be informed and very selective when making media choices for their children.”

. . . But Educational Shows, DVD's Aren't So Educational

Christakis and his co-author, Frederick Zimmerman, were previously known for writing a study which discovered that infants who watched educational baby videos, such as Brainy Baby,actually had smaller vocabularies than those who didn't. The Walt Disney Company, who produce and distribute Baby Einstein DVDs and other educational products, called the study misleading and unreliable and demanded that the University of Washington retract a news release on it. The university refused.

“We now recognize that content is key,” said Christakis about his new study. “Given the media saturated world that young children now inhabit, we need further research and policies to ensure that media exerts a positive influence on children.”

The Simpsons Movie poster

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